Eli Manning made Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo, then they sacrificed him

It’s been less than 24 hours since New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo, with the approval of general manager Jerry Reese, announced that Eli Manning’s 210 consecutive games started streak would come to an end and that the two-time Super Bowl MVP would be benched in favor of Geno Smith.

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Yes, the Giants gave Manning a fool’s gold opportunity to start and keep his streak going for nothing other than the streak itself, but in appropriate Manning fashion, he batted that carrot on a stick away in favor of doing what’s right for the team. And he did so with the gut-wrenching pain of being completely sold out and thrown under the bus by the very same men he made.

It was Ernie Accorsi, not Jerry Reese, who ultimately landed Manning in the Big Apple. But with two Super Bowl titles since 2007, it was Reese who directly benefited from that.

Bad drafts, poor free agent signings and horrible offensive lines be damned, Manning helped carry the Giants back to prominence, becoming the first quarterback in franchise history to win two Super Bowl titles and only the fifth quarterback in NFL history to win two Super Bowl MVP awards.

When the Giants deemed it time to sacrifice Tom Coughlin, a fierce and loyal Manning supporter, it was Eli who helped land Ben McAdoo the head coaching gig.

Not only had Manning played extremely well under McAdoo the offensive coordinator, he told Jerry Reese and team ownership he was 100 percent behind McAdoo’s hire.

That decision must be one of the few Manning regrets.

Since McAdoo took over as head coach, and with Jerry Reese still cemented as the general manager, the Giants have been run into the ground. The offense has been anemic at best, the offensive line has been futile, the running game has been nearly non-existent and, at least in 2017, the depth at skill positions has evaporated.

With no one else to blame, Ben and Jerry had only one choice left to save their skin: sacrifice the very man who made them.

As WFAN’s Mike Francesa alluded to in his epic Tuesday rant, neither Reese nor McAdoo would have a job without Manning. But when push came to shove, it was easier for them to point fingers than it was to accept blame.

Sure, Reese and McAdoo have said all the right things in public, but over the previous two seasons, that has not come without underhanded (and in some cases, blunt) criticisms of Manning.

All the while, Manning has remained silent and never fired back. Rather, as he’s always done, he’s absorbed the entirety of the blame and never once defended himself in the face of unjust, unfair and disrespectful criticism.

At the end of the day, that’s the difference between a true team player — something McAdoo hypocritically preaches — and the boy who cried wolf. Manning is the champion, not Reese and not McAdoo. And no matter what the future holds for the three of them, that’s exactly how the masses will remember it.

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Eli Manning made Jerry Reese and Ben McAdoo, then they sacrificed him. But history has a funny way of remembering things, so long after those two are forgotten, Manning will be remembered as the greatest quarterback in New York Giants history, a two-time Super Bowl champion and a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame who was done dirty by the same organization he returned to respectability.

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